Does Anal Retentive Have a Hyphen?
September 13, 2006The title of this little blog springs from a joke t-shirt that someone wanted to buy for me awhile back. It was a friend that noticed I had a preoccupation with certain things like straightening pictures , aligning magazines on a coffeetable and making sure that in a pile of cash all the bills are facing the same way etc. I have never claimed to be neat nor even organized but geometrically I like order. Unfortunately I may have inadvertently passed this on to Carter. As early as 1 year old he was showing strong tendencies toward organization and aligning things. His biggest kick now is things that are “the same”. His attention to sameness is both cute and alarming at the same time. As a math teacher I have to confess I am a little proud of him though.
I tried to capture some of his “work” in the following photos.
The first entry is fairly self - explanatory. He likes things in a line and will spend a good amount of time in putting the line of objects in a certain order. There is a great deal of arranging and rearranging before the final ta-da.
The second entry shows his preference of organizing by colour. While flipping through this picture book of cars he suddenly ran off to the living room from his bedroom and returned with the 4 cars he needed to complete his little matching game. He finished by flashing a cute little grin before heading off to play.
